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Dagelijks archief 1 december 2016

54 Violations against Palestinian journalists were carried out during November at the hands of Israeli and PA forces, the government information office in Gaza affirmed.

In its monthly report, the government information office said in a report on Thursday that Israeli occupation forces carried out more than 48 violations against Palestinians while eight violations were carried out at the hands of PA security forces over the past month.

Over November, three journalists were arrested by the IOF while two others were detained for a short time before being released.

Five other journalists’ arrest was extended during the reported period.

The monthly report pointed out that three journalists were injured during Israeli attacks while two press vehicles were burned.

Israeli forces also carried out nine raids into printing presses, newspapers headquarters, and a media institute.

Seven imprisoned journalists were also attacked in Israeli jails in November, while three others were forced to pay heavy fines as part of their conditional release.

Four other journalists were denied travel by the Israeli occupation authorities.

Meanwhile, PA forces committed eight violations against Palestinian journalists in the West Bank.

SNHR has published its periodic death toll report for the month of November 2016 in which it documented the killing of 1402 civilians at the hands of the main influential parties in Syria.
The report notes that SNHR team encounters difficulties in documenting victims from armed opposition factions as many of those victims are killed on battlefronts and not inside cities. Also, we aren’t able to obtain details such as names, pictures and other important details on account of the armed opposition forces’ unwillingness to reveal such information for security concerns among other reasons. Therefore, the actual number of victims is much greater than what is being recorded.
On the other side, the report affirms that it is almost impossible to access information about victims from government forces or from ISIS and the margin of error is considerably higher due to the lack of any applicable methodology in this type of documentation. The Syrian government and ISIS don’t publish, reveal, or record their victims. From our perspective, the statistics published by some groups on this category of victims are fictitious and are not based on any actual data.

Therefore, the report only incudes civilian victims who were killed by all parties and compare them.
The report breaks down the death toll of November 2016 where government forces killed 741 civilians including 201 children (seven children are killed every day) and 152 women in addition to 48 civilians who died due to torture
Out of the total number of civilian victim, 48% were children and women which is an explicit indicator on the deliberate targeting of civilians by the government forces.
The report notes that forces we believe are Russian killed 358 civilians including 109 children and 57 women.
Additionally, the report documented the killing of 17 civilians, including two children and five women in addition to one civilian who died due to torture, at the hands of the Self-management forces (Primarily consisting of the Democratic Union Party forces – branch for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party)
Furthermore, the report notes that ISIS killed 70 civilians including 16 children and six women in addition to one civilian who died to torture.

The report also records that 104 civilians, including 25 children and 18 women in addition to four civilians who died due to torture, were killed by armed opposition factions.
In addition, the report records that 69 civilians, including 11 children and 14 women, were killed the international coalition forces in November.
The report documents that 43 civilians, including seven children and nine women, have either died drowning as they were fleeing by sea or in bombings that SNHR hasn’t been able to identify its perpetrators or were carried out by unidentified armed groups to SNHR.
The report emphasizes that government forces and Russian forces have violated the international human rights law which guarantees the right to life. Furthermore, evidences and proofs, according to hundreds of eyewitnesses’ accounts, suggest that 90% at least of the widespread and single attacks were directed against civilians and civil facilities.
Also, ISIS perpetrated many crimes of extrajudicial killing which constitute war crimes.

Moreover, some of the armed opposition factions committed crimes of extrajudicial killing that qualify as war crimes. Also, Self-management forces and international coalition forces have both committed war crimes that manifested in the crime of extrajudicial killing.
The report calls on the Security Council and the international community to uphold their responsibilities in relation to the crimes of killing that is being perpetrated ceaselessly and to apply pressure on the Syrian government to stop the deliberate and indiscriminate bombardment of civilians.
Finally, the report considers the Russian regime, all Shiite militias, and ISIS as foreign parties that are effectively involved in the killings and holds all of these parties and the financiers and supports of the Syrian regime legally and judicially responsible.

Fatah’s seventh conference discussed, in its third day in Ramallah, various committees’ reports and formed a committee to oversee the Movement’s elections.

Mahmoud Abu al-Haija, the conference’s spokesperson, stated in a press release on Thursday evening that the conference activities began with approving the agenda, and then forming a committee concerned with the movement’s elections, both the Revolutionary Council and the Central Committee.

The conferees discussed reports tabled by the central committee especially the economic report submitted by Mohammad Shtayyeh in which he mentioned the obstacles plaguing the Palestinian economy along with ways to deal with them, Abu al-Haija added.

Abu al-Haija said that the conference reviewed the financial report which pointed to the movement’s poor budget and tackled the budgets of various commissions. The members also listened to the political report read by the Central Committee member Saeb Erekat.

The conference began Tuesday morning and is scheduled to last for five days.

The Fatah seventh conference was postponed more than once due to the differences within the movement. However, today it is held amid the worsening of these differences in addition to declarations by many of its dissident leaders that they would not recognize is outcome.

Israeli military incursions inside the besieged Gaza Strip and near the “buffer zone” have long been a near-daily occurrence

Israeli military vehicles escorted several bulldozers into the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday morning, where they leveled Palestinian agricultural fields

Witnesses told Ma’an that five military bulldozers escorted by military vehicles crossed the border fence in the eastern outskirts of the town of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, “and carried out earthworks near the border fence.”

The military vehicles entered the Palestinian side of the border through a gate near Israel’s Sufa military post.

Witnesses added that Israeli reconnaissance planes hovered over the area during the activities on the ground.

An Israeli army spokesperson said they were looking into reports.

Israeli military incursions inside the besieged Gaza Strip and near the “buffer zone,” which lies on both land and sea sides of Gaza, have long been a near-daily occurrence.

Palestinians who work near the unilaterally declared “buffer zone” between the Palestinian enclave and Israel also often come under fire from military forces, as the Israeli military has not made clear the precise area of the designated zone.

A United Nations official on Thursday slammed what he described as the international community’s silence toward the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the blockaded Gaza Strip.

“The world has closed its eyes and ears about the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza,” Pierre Krahenbuhl, commissioner general for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), told a news briefing in Gaza.

“It’s not acceptable at all to keep the suffering of hundreds of thousands of people ongoing due to wars that the Gaza Strip witnessed and the hard daily living situation facing people there,” said Krahenbuhl.

“The world should be even more concerned about the humanitarian cost of 50 years of occupation and 10 years of an endless blockade imposed on Gaza,” said Krahenbuhl.

“If the world continues to simply watch what happens in Gaza,” Krahenbuhl warned, “the situation will never improve in the coming years, which means increased suffering of children, senior citizens and women.”

He also noted that over 65 percent of students studying at UNRWA schools can’t find employment due to the harsh living conditions and increasing poverty and unemployment rates.

“Some 90 percent of UNRWA’s schoolchildren have never been out of Gaza ever since they were born,” said Krahenbuhl.

Krahenbuhl said Gaza’s internationally-backed construction plan has completely stopped and that in May 2016, he provided Israel with a list of 400 people’s names whose homes needed reconstruction.

“We have the money to rebuild these homes, but until now the Israeli side has not given any positive or negative response to our request,” said Krahenbuhl.

The Gaza Strip’s population of two million has been grappling with a tough Israeli blockade since the summer of 2007.

In addition to the negative impact of the blockade on the economy and daily life, Israel waged three large-scale military offensives against the Gaza Strip, killing hundreds of civilians and destroying thousands of homes and facilities.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov speaks during a meeting with his Chinese counterpart in Moscow on March 11, 2016

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday that Moscow and Damascus were not behind an air strike in northern Syria that killed four Turkish soldiers last week.

“Neither Russia nor Syria, its air force, had anything to do with this,” Lavrov told a news conference in the southern Turkish resort of Alanya, alongside his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu.

Turkey earlier blamed the Syrian regime for the November 24 strike, which came on the first anniversary of the shooting down of a Russian military warplane by the Turkish air force.

The 2015 incident sparked an unprecedented crisis in relations between Turkey and Russia, who remain on opposite sides of the Syrian conflict.

Turkey has embarked on an ambitious military operation inside Syria since August, supporting opposition fighters who have so far retaken Jarabulus, Al Rai and the symbolically important town of Dabiq from ISIS.

The Turkish army blamed the Syrian regime for the deadly strike, while Turkish media reported the Turkish troops were killed by ISIS.

“To concentrate on fighting terrorists we must continue to improve coordination,” Lavrov said.

“We coordinate with the U.S.-led coalition, of which Turkey is a part, with the goal of avoiding unplanned incidents. So, through these channels, it would make sense to check who was flying and who was not flying.”

Cavusoglu said his country and Russia want a cease-fire in Syria.

Speaking alongside the Russian FM, Cavusoglu said: “We are in agreement that a cease-fire is needed so that the tragedy can come to an end.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan caused waves in Russia this week with remarks suggesting that Turkey’s military actions in Syria aim to topple the Assad regime.

“Our president’s, our views on Assad are known,” said Cavusoglu. “We know that Assad is responsible for the deaths of 600,000 people. We may at times have different views on Assad with Russia, that is natural but in general on cease-fire, on humanitarian aid and a political solution — we are in agreement with Russia.”

Cavusoglu said Turkey wanted to “deepen” cooperation with Russia while Lavrov said the two nations agreed that the “normalization (of ties) must be achieved fast.”

The human rights group, B’Tselem, has released a new report about Israel’s dispossession of the Palestinians in the West Bank, describing its land grab policy as one of Israel’s fundamental principles since its emergence.

According to this report, the successive Israeli governments have embarked for many years on annexing and dismembering Palestinian rural areas and depriving the native residents of their land and natural resources for the benefit of Jewish settlers.

The report explains how West Bank settlers also play a major role in this dispossession policy and how the state have given them a free rein to act as a suppressive tool in these Palestinian areas, taking over lands and property and assaulting local residents.

President of the Syrian Coalition Anas Abdah sent a letter to the 15-member group of friends of the Syrian people as well as to international and regional organizations to press for stopping the brutal bombing campaign by the Assad regime and Russia air forces.

Abdah called for urgent action to save the people of Aleppo from the ongoing genocide as he warned of an unprecedented humanitarian disaster having serious political, humanitarian consequences for the Syrian people and the peoples of the region.

Abdah also called for effective and practical steps to ensure the lifting of sieges and alleviating the suffering of the besieged people through airdrops of aid to civilians trapped inside. Abdah also called for public condemnation of the bombing of Aleppo by Russia and the Assad regime, stressing the need to set up an international committee to prosecute those responsible and ensure that perpetrators of crimes are held to account through the referral of the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court and the provision of all means to protect civilians in accordance with international law.

Furthermore, the letter called for exerting pressure on Iran to withdraw all its militias from Syria and for condemning the crimes they are committing against Syrian civilians, most notably the mass forced displacement of the civilian population and replacing them with foreign settlers with the aim of changing the demographic, social, and cultural identity of the majority of the regime-held areas. These foreign militias must be designated as terrorist groups and their leaders must be prosecuted, the letter added.

Abdah called for pressure on Russia and its allies to ensure the full implementation of Articles 12, 13, and 14 of the UNSC resolution 2254 (2015).

Abdah also underscored that the real solution in Syria lies in the full implementation of the plan for political transition set out in the Geneva Communique of 2012 and the relevant UNSC resolutions, most importantly resolutions 2118 (2013) and 2254 (2015), as well as the establishment of a transitional governing body that transitions Syria from tyranny to democracy with the participation of all Syrian people without exception.

The letter expressed gratitude for the efforts of France in its quest to host a high-level meeting to support the Syrian people as well as its call for an urgent UN Security Council meeting to discuss the situation in Syria.

The sentencing of two Palestinian child prisoners, Shadi Farrah and Ahmad al-Zaatari, was postponed until15 January by the Israeli Jerusalem Magistrates’ Court on 29 November. The two boys were expected to be sentenced to two additional years of imprisonment, for a total of three years, on charges of possession of a knife and attempting to carry out a resistance action because of having a knife in their bag. The two boys were seized by occupation forces as they stood at a bus stop in their village of Kufr Aqab.

Shadi and Ahmad have been imprisoned since 30 December 2015. The sentencing is part of a plea agreement that was accepted by the families of the two boys due to the looming threat of their 14th birthday, at which point the two face sentencing equivalent to that of adults. Following the 12-year sentence given to 14-year-old Ahmad Manasrah – whose own trial was repeatedly postponed until he reached the age of 14- as well as the lengthy sentences of Muawiya Alqam, Munther Abu Mayalah, Mohammed Taha and Nurhan Awad, Shadi’s family said that the Israeli prosecution threatened to delay his sentencing past his 14th birthday. Shadi’s family has found it very difficult to see him and he has had a particularly difficult experience of imprisonment as he is held in a juvenile detention facility with “criminal” youth Israeli prisoners, without fellow Palestinian prisoners and separate from the large prisons to which group family visits are arranged.

As the 13- and 14-year old boys face years of imprisonment, Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association released a new 11-minute video, “Precarious Childhood,” on 29 November, focusing on the plight of Palestinian Jerusalemite child prisoners like Shadi and Ahmad. The film includes an interview with Shadi’s mother, Farehan Farrah, who says: “I’m addressing all mothers all over the world, if they would put themselves in my shoes for a moment, or for a night, where her child is away from her, taken away, by force and unjustly. How would a mother feel? My child, who every morning before going to school, gives me a hug, that moment, I would not trade it for the world.”

The video provides a range of interviews with former prisoners, child prisoners’ families, lawyers and others. Watch online or screen this film at your next event:

A Palestinian human rights group has reported the occurrence of 500 arrest incidents by the Israeli occupation forces against Palestinians last November in different areas of the occupied territories including Gaza Strip.

Among the detainees were 110 children and teenagers under age 18 as well as 14 girls and women, according to report released by the Palestinian Prisoner Center for Studies on Thursday.

14 citizens from Gaza, including eight fishermen, were also among those captives.

Israeli military and security forces carried out those arrests during the reporting month.